Our governors are greedy, says Mbadiwe

A former member of the National Assembly, Dr. Eddie Mbadiwe, has said that unless Nigerians rose and spoke out in defence of justice, the dream of our founding fathers will never be achieved.

Mbadiwe, who represented Ideato North and South Federal Constituency of Imo State in the House of Representatives on the platform of All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), accused governors of pouncing on funds meant for local governments with impunity and stalling development at the grassroots.

Describing the governors’ forum as a dangerous body not provided for in the constitution of Nigeria, the APGA chieftain said they use it to perpetrate evil and submitted that growth at the rural communities would remain at zero level.

He spoke at the golden jubilee wedding anniversary of the chief medical director of Memfys International Hospital for Neurosurgery, Enugu, Prof. Sam Ohaegbulam.

According to him: ”These are the kind of instruments the governors lean on for protection and intimidate the people, how do you expect the local government chairmen to embark on projects that would touch on the lives of their people when their allocations are seized and they only receive peanuts. Our people must rise and speak out against this wicked act.”

He regretted that despite that the law on local government autonomy had long been passed by the national assembly, the governors were yet to respect, it even as he called for the scrapping of the Governors Forum, saying “our governors are just greedy.”

Mbadiwe stated that the agitations by some groups for the restructuring of the country would not succeed unless the National AQssembly decides.

He noted that rather than the people urging their legislative representives to make it happen through appropriate legislation, they had virtually converted every vendor stand in the country as their National Assembly.

He warned: “The country is in trouble, no person has the courage to address these issues objectively.” The former University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) teacher stressed that the only legal body that has the power to restructure Nigeria was the National Assembly, adding that former President Goodluck Jonathan only effected an amendment in the constitution in 2011.

Mbadiwe, also a former governor of Rotary International District 9140, said that the only restructuring that would make meaningful impact was to split the country into regions, stressing that as long as all the powers are concentrated at the centre (Abuja), the states would remain poor. He noted that decentralization of power and resources would put the states in better financial footing.

On education, the former legislator said Nigeria was behind in learning and research, and wondered why anyone could expect progress when the system was not moving at the same speed with its counterparts globally.